I've been getting the urge to play EVE again (watching the footage for Alliance Tournament XI was a major cause). I haven't reinstalled because... I guess I get enough spreadsheets at work? Anyway I had a brilliant plan to try out Star Trek Online. I mean, free to play, right?

Maybe it gets better if you spend money on the game, of if you stick with it through the bad parts for awhile, but from the new-player experience... I can see why this game didn't do well. Massively buggy (ex., all my away missions had enemies spawning inside obstacles, but sometimes I could use bugs to get squad members to clip through as well). Very little ability to buy money to get upgraded equipment (without paying), and the random anomaly missions gave a pittance of experience, leaving me either grinding forever or slamming my face into the wall of enemy battleship in the next story mission. It just wasn't enough fun to justify spending $20 on a non-shit ship and crew, so... yeah I'm done with that._________________“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

I'm seriously toying with trying FF XIV. Wish I'd thought to try the open beta..._________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

From everything I've heard, I'm considering it. I absolutely hated FFXI, but... there's been a ton of talk._________________“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

It's amazing watching all these amazing companies of years past just get carved into such shit. Maxis is a hard loss. Of course, I'm a wee bit sadder about what's been happening to Blizzard and Bioware, since they used to be quality leaders and now they're sick jokes.

Bioware I'll fully agree with, they've been a rather sad shell since EA gobbled them up and the doctors left, but Blizzard is actually doing rather well. WoW is nearing the end of what may be the best expansion it's had (and is still expanding the team despite massive subscriber loss to the free to play scene in Asia), Starcraft 2 is maintaining it's position as an e-sport (admittedly, after having lost a hell of a lot to LoL).

And Hearthstone is looking fucking amazing.

I realize that you've got a raging hard on for their story department, but they've always said that story is pretty far down the totem pole of things they care about._________________The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

Blizzard making money hand over fist is one thing, but what I care about is that I no longer trust them to provide good games I will have any interest in.

DIII, while a game I got my money's worth out of (then promptly earned my money back at the RMAH) was too concerning a thing in sum.

Blizzard has a chance, though. It was becoming painfully obvious that their advancement to its present monetization environment was for the benefit of their corporate overlord Vivendi, which is billions of dollars in debt and was getting ready to move from aggressively short term leeching Blizzard's profitability to outright sucking the company dry. But Blizzard painfully bought back its freedom from Vivendi, so let's see where they go from here.

Blizzard making money hand over fist is one thing, but what I care about is that I no longer trust them to provide good games I will have any interest in.

DIII, while a game I got my money's worth out of (then promptly earned my money back at the RMAH) was too concerning a thing in sum.

Blizzard has a chance, though. It was becoming painfully obvious that their advancement to its present monetization environment was for the benefit of their corporate overlord Vivendi, which is billions of dollars in debt and was getting ready to move from aggressively short term leeching Blizzard's profitability to outright sucking the company dry. But Blizzard painfully bought back its freedom from Vivendi, so let's see where they go from here.

Bioware, on the other hand, appears permanently cooked.

Thats exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with making money hand over fist for putting out great games. But take the bioware thing. They had every opportunity to succeed with SWTOR. EA decided they wanted a december release though, so they took the engine away from the company that was developing it after they asked for more time to work on it and tried to finish it off in house. Now the engine is a buggy pile of crap that cant handle the cross server ques the game desperately needs. That's not the decision of a game designer, its the decision of someone crunching numbers in an office and looking to make their stock go up a few points before the quarter ends.

Meanwhile diablo 3 has managed to actually improve its experience._________________

One of the things that I rather like about Blizzard is their tendency to admit mistakes and not repeat them. Jay Wilson said quite some time ago that the AH and RMAH were both a mistake and deleterious to the game as a whole, lo and behold both are gone from the console version._________________The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.